Editorial Services
I am the author of Discography (Yale University Press, 2002), winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize, and the Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America and a Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; Honey & Smoke (Eyewear Publishing, 2015); and Today in the Taxi (forthcoming, Tupelo Press). I have a Ph.D. in American Studies from Rutgers-Newark.
I offer services to help people with poetry and with academic prose. These forms are in some ways opposites. Poetry is about metaphor and bringing things together, whereas academic prose is about analysis and taking things apart. Both forms, to paraphrase Stanley Kunitz, require digging into the pit of the self and then finding ways to dig out again. Writing is tantamount to thinking, and the first goal of writing should be to create the person who will do the writing. The voice in a piece of writing should be an intelligent, human voice speaking to the reader. I can help you create the writer and the writing.
For information about my academic editorial services, please click here. For testimonials from happy clients, please click here.
Poetry Editorial Services
I offer process-oriented revisions. I give tender, but specific and intensive ways to reimagine poems, to bring out the most meaning in poems, and with the most beauty. I have decades of experience with publishing and getting rejections. I understand how hard it is to write a poem. I know the kinds of vulnerabilities it takes to offer your poems for scrutiny. I’ve dedicated my life to poetry and have experience and wisdom in many ways of writing it, reading it, and publishing it. Rather than offering a mere “tune-up” of your manuscript, I offer the benefit of this lifetime of experience of living a life in poetry, especially living it outside of academia. I’m fast, efficient, and empathetic.
Poetry is the most difficult and life-enhancing thing a person can do. I offer intelligent, sensitive, and generous feedback to help you make the poems you want to make.
How I Can Help
The poem in the head is always perfect, but often the poem on the page is flat—this creates frustration. I diagnose the reasons why that’s occurring, and minimize or eliminate these obstacles. I help facilitate the process of writing to help make the poem in the mind translate onto the page.
Ways We Can Work Together
I offer several tiers of editorial services—from a review of a series of poems, to comprehensive manuscript review, to line editing and publication support, and more. My rates are fair and flexible, and I will work with you to find an option that fits what you need and what your poems need. I offer conferences in person, on telephone, or via FaceTime/Zoom. Below please find some of the services I offer. In addition to the editing services below, I offer a 30- or 60-minute call to talk through your project and how you might proceed.
If you have further questions, please email me.
I offer shorter “jumpstart” package at lower prices for MFA students and recent MFA graduates.
I offer strategies and ways of managing promotion and marketing for people publishing first books.
Academic Prose Editorial Services
I offer developmental editing for academic prose. Writing academic prose is a genre the way poetry, fiction, or nonfiction are genres. Writing a dissertation is one of the most challenging and all-consuming things a person can do; it dwarfs the stamina and patience required for doctoral coursework or exams. It’s the summation of all that you know on your subject and moves the writer from role of student to that of a peer or colleague of the people on the committee. In some ways, it agitates one’s sense of self; it demands more than scholarship. It’s about staking a piece of intellectual territory and producing an original and necessary body of work.
How I Can Help
I provide achievable deadlines and attentive support in these areas: psychological sturdiness (stamina, bravery), as well as rhetorical structure (making strong arguments, and bringing ideas together in the best way). The goal is for your work can enter an academic “conversation.” I charge standard rates set by the Editorial Freelancers Association.
I can help with academic prose and/or dissertations in any subject, but I have expertise in interdisciplinary work in urban studies, cultural histories of cities, jazz historiography, photography, literary studies, and film studies.
Ways We Can Work Together
I offer several tiers of editorial services—from a review of a draft of an article or proposal, to comprehensive manuscript review, line editing and production support for a complete dissertation or monograph, and more. My rates are fair and flexible, and I will work with you to find an option that fits what you need and what your research needs. I offer conferences in person, on telephone, or via FaceTime/Zoom. Below please find some of the services I offer.
Ready to get started?
Please email me (sean.singer@gmail.com) for information about costs, and how to proceed.
Testimonials
I highly recommend working with Sean Singer. It can feel scary to share your writing, particularly with someone you have never met, but Sean made me feel completely safe doing so. His comments about my poems were so on-target. When I read his written suggestions and heard him over the phone, it felt like he knew me. He read my poems with such care and attention and was able to point to moments in the poems that lack clarity; he found the places in my poems that I knew were troublesome but I could not pinpoint why. Sean Singer urged me to be brave and take risks in this revision process, and he lit a fire under me that I have needed. —Sarah Anderson
Thanks to Sean Singer's editorial services, I was able to revise my manuscript to express my vision. I went from not knowing how to integrate my poems into their historical context to feeling confident that my project reaches its full potential. Sean provided an in-depth manuscript review including a holistic overview, advice on specific poems including line edits, a reading list, and publishing advice. He discussed my follow-up questions over the phone, and I left the experience understanding exactly how to move forward with revisions. His editorial skills are invaluable, and I can't recommend working with him enough. —Allison Pitnii Davis
Sean was a great reader for my work, and provided feedback that was generous, attentive, constructive and helpful. And he was super-efficient! His response to my poems addressed overall thematic concerns as well as suggested line edits which felt very careful and considered, plus supplemental reading to enhance my understanding of context and lineage surrounding my work—something I really appreciated. I would definitely recommend him as a consultant for any poet interested in a critical (but kind) external perspective on their work. —A.T.
It wasn't until I started to get the courage to put all of my poems in a first real manuscript that I considered outsourcing the manuscript privately for a letter of critique by someone who was not in charge of my education and by someone who I did not know in my private life. I wanted an objective opinion. Sean Singer returned my manuscript within a few days and had read it closely three times. He wrote me a long email with overall comments toward style, themes, voice, effect, titles, tone, and commentary on sequencing and how the narrative elements worked alongside the lyric elements. He then spent a generous amount of time, sometimes an entire paragraph on every single poem, what he liked, noticed, and the areas he thought could be improved upon. This was most helpful as sometimes, professors in the academy are spread thin with a full roster of students who need their attention. He then summed up the balance of these poems as they spoke to each other. All of this came from a kind, generous, and wonderfully educated place. He is an accomplished poet, sure, but he was never pretentious or condescending, even with the poems that needed the most work. I cannot express how helpful his critique has been, and the overall experience has given me the courage and confidence to send it out for the first time this year. He even helped me with that aspect, suggesting places he thought might like my work. Don't hesitate another day. Do your best to push it as far as you can alone, and then immediately hire him. It was one of the smartest things I've ever done for myself as a poet untethered from a program or a mentor. —Laura Minor
Sean Singer is a discerning reader who helped me gain new perspective on my book without imposing his own style. He identified strengths and weaknesses of my manuscript and suggested ways I might expand it, completing his evaluation on time or ahead of schedule. In addition, his critique showed how some of the strongest poems in the collection could be polished. —Marion Brown
Sean Singer has been one of my most trusted readers for over a decade. I’ve valued his advice for singular poems and whole manuscripts. His vision for and grasp of the possibilities of a work-in-progress are ever-sharp and completely dependable. He is the poem’s compass. —CM Burroughs
Sean’s insightful approach to sequencing my manuscript revealed new ways of seeing the connections between my poems. He was extremely generous in sharing his knowledge and experience, and with his recommendations, I feel confident and ready to complete my book and begin sending it out to prospective publishers. — Jesse Wallis
Sean Singer is the ideal resource: whether you are a working poet who needs feedback on a piece or an author looking for perspective on a manuscript, Sean is fast, thoughtful and affordable.—William Lessard
Receiving feedback from Sean Singer was delightful. Part of making art and reading art and finessing art is in answer to the question: How can we see each other in poetry? I feel most seen when I know readers are seeing the rest of the world, yes, the beauty and the travesty. Sean Singer is that, and I am grateful for the chance to donate to organizations and receive his skillful feedback. Sean was prompt, thorough, and attentive in his reading and eye and in his feedback. He noted both techniques and forms that worked as well as tendencies that detracted. His language was clear-headed, forthright, easy-to-understand, and honest. He also noted themes I had been uncertain about, and he generously took the time to answer a few further questions from me, which was enormously helpful. — Sherine Gilmour
If you are serious about finishing a poetry manuscript and would like to find a master poet who can provide detailed assistance with editing and copyediting, Sean Singer is definitely someone with whom you should consider working. After I had put together my latest chapbook manuscript, Ghost Moose, which was subsequently accepted by Kattywompus Press and which focuses on the sixth extinction, Sean provided detailed notes about each poem and about placement in the collection. His erudition was evident, and he had an astute editorial eye. Anyone who wants to take a collection to the next level would benefit from working with him. —Margo Taft Stever
Sean Singer has been extraordinarily helpful to me. Singer particularly encourages the writer to express his or her thoughts clearly and persuasively. —Herbert Engelhardt (Engelhardt was born in 1925, and has lived in Greenwich Village since 1952; he started writing poetry at 75)
My poetry manuscript had been a bridesmaid, several times, but had never made it into print. After spending hours and hours alone with my manuscript, trying to revise, I needed a new set of eyes and ears, and I needed a quick turnaround. Sean Singer helped me with all of my needs. Relying on someone else’s advice is time-consuming and frustrating. That wasn’t the case with Sean Singer’s editorial assistance at all. His knowledge of poetic form, thorough attention to detail, keen insight into the heartwood of a poem, and amazing ear were invaluable. He engaged with the poems at the line level and at the manuscript level, and I took all of his suggestions. The very next time I submitted my manuscript, I won a first-book prize. I think this was due to Sean’s outstanding editing work. I know that the turnaround time was within a weekend, too. I highly recommend Sean Singer’s expertise to anyone who has poems to review. —Pamela Johnson Parker, author of Cleave (winner of Trio House Award First Book Prize)